1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to a computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for configuring a partition with needed system resources to enable an application to run and process in a secure environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
A logical partitioned functionality within a data processing system allows multiple copies of a single operating system or multiple heterogeneous operating systems to be simultaneously run on a single data processing system platform. A partition, within which an operating system image runs, is assigned a non-overlapping subset of the platform's resources. These platform allocatable resources include one or more architecturally distinct processors with their interrupt management area, regions of system memory, and input/output (I/O) devices. An operating system may be installed on the disk drives, such that each logical partition (LPAR) runs as an independent server with the processor, memory, and input/output resources allocated to the partition. The partition's resources are represented by the platform's firmware to the operating system image.
Configuring logical partitions with the system resources needed to run an application on the partition currently requires a system administrator to configure and maintain these configurations. A system administrator connects to the system being configured or managed through a hardware management console (HMC). A hardware management console is a hardware terminal that connects to the server firmware. This terminal allows an administrator to make hardware configurations, install operating systems, applications, and configure software for the logical partitioned data processing system. The elements in configuring logical partitioned systems include, but are not limited to, network information, the size and amount of disks which may be physical or virtual, and Ethernet adapters. The network configuration information includes, for example, the Internet Protocol (IP) address, a subnet mask, and a default gateway.
Currently, to set up a data processing system having partitions for specific operating environments, the system administrator uses the hardware management console to create specific partitions for specific operating environments, as well as allocate specific system resources to the partitions. Alternatively, the system administrator may use the hardware management console to set up dynamic logical partitioning, wherein the specific system resources for a partition may be allocated dynamically based on the configuration set up by the system administrator. A drawback to the current logical partitioning method is that the partitions must be set up prior to runtime and preconfigured with the necessary allocations or system resources. Thus, if an application is placed on the data processing system, the application must operate under the constraints of these preconfigured resource allocations.